Waterfall
images from the collection

In 19th-century Australia, artists and photographers keenly sought out waterfalls as subject matter. Working according to the traditions of Romanticism, they regarded this motif as the ultimate expression of the sublime and the beautiful to which they aspired.

An enduring fascination for this motif across two centuries is highlighted in this display. Offering insights into diverse responses to a common theme, it includes paintings by Eugene von Guérard, Conrad Martens, Fred Williams and William Delafield Cook alongside a group of spectacular 19th-century photographs.